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On August 12th of 2023, I made a post criticizing Hitler's behavior, titled Re: The National Body, based on Bryan Caplan's reading of Hitler's book indicating an ideological system that believes in the inevitability of Malthusian total war. In a later post on February 24th of 2024, responding to an anon that said I came off as New Right, in addition to describing a 2x2 matrix of outcomes for genetic engineering, I also wrote,
There are some reasons to believe that the force of envy, which is as old as humanity, will overwhelm the ability of the production system to sustain itself, and the political ability of the defenders of the production system to protect that system. However, treating that as a certainty makes little sense.
Until very recently, it was effectively not possible to alter genes in an adult. This meant that, effectively, the only tool available was reproductive coercion. Acknowledging that a problem was genetic meant that it was "unsolvable," and that suffering was "inevitable." Because the use of reproductive coercion was so obvious, an elaborate system was set up to suppress information about genetics... but despite this, the study of genetics continued.
Current liberal responses to the use of genetic engineering technology are tainted by the belief that the technology is "science fiction" and may never arrive, and thus someone proposing it may be engaging in discursive maneuvering to "trick" the liberal into supporting human suffering with a fake hypothetical.
We don't actually know how influential liberals will respond when the technology arrives for more than just a handful of monogenic diseases. The idea that they will completely oppose the technology is an assumption, not a fact.
And perhaps more importantly, you never present a solid alternative course of action, and I do not, in fact, have anything better to do.
This gets toward one of our differences: I don't share your technological optimism, particularly when it comes to the economics. This idea that once something is technologically possible, it will become broadly affordable within some reasonably short timeframe (due to ongoing "progress")… well, when is the inevitable progress of ever-cheaper technology going to make supersonic passenger flight economical?
Sure, but one can extrapolate from the evidence, and, more importantly, it's not the "influential liberals" (to the extent there even are any left) that we need to worry about, it's the much more influential illiberal left that's the issue.
This is a perennial frustration of mine, interacting with people online, this idea that criticism of a proposed plan of action is inherently invalid unless the critic can present a fully-fleshed superior alternative. Like, an architect has a proposal for a new, record-setting suspension bridge to be built across some span of water. He's got blueprints, and cost estimates, and everything. Except, you look at it, and it's all missing the cables from which the road bed is meant to be suspended. If you point this out to him, and that his bridge is going to collapse without them, and he responds "well, where's your proposed bridge? Where are your blueprints, your budgets? You don't have any? Well, then your criticism is therefore invalid, and my bridge will hold up just fine!" What do you say to that?
Your proposed course of action is, if I understand it, is to buttress liberalism against the illiberal "woke" left long enough for these technologies to become broadly available and obviate the political issues, right? Except, your means for doing so is, what, voting Republican? That's the part I primarily object to, and where I keep pushing the "and if that don't work?" questions your way.
I'm not discussing most other plans at this time.
In the meantime, the mainblog will soon be shutting down for a six-month hiatus.
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